


Happiness

by Eiliem



Series: Family Reunion [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Brotherhood, D Brothers, Family, Fluff, Gen, POV Third Person, Strawhats, Whitebeard Pirates - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-24
Updated: 2009-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiliem/pseuds/Eiliem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luffy breaks brains, Ace laughs at him, and Sanji's faith in his captain's gluttony is vindicated.</p><p>Part 3 of the Family Reunion series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness

Having his little brother aboard the Moby Dick was… _funny_, Ace decided. Largely because his crewmates didn't know what to make of Luffy. Of course, they hadn't known what to make of his crew at first either, but Whitebeard's pirates had had nearly a week to become acclimatised to the Strawhats while Luffy slept in the infirmary; time to get used to their idiosyncrasies and strangeness.

Used to the way Zoro trained with weights at _least_ five times heavier than he was; used to the way he and Sanji sometimes went at each others throats like they honestly wanted to kill each other, but mostly stood watch over their little family like brothers.

Used to the way Usopp bragged and blustered and ducked behind his crewmates if he felt threatened, but was treated like a warrior of his own right by the other Strawhats.

Used to the way Nami could predict weather on the unpredictable Grand Line, and used feigned sweetness to cover a scrappiness that gave no quarter.

Used to the way Chopper yelled insults at anyone who said a kind word to him, to the way he clung to Zoro and Usopp but still had it in him to stand before Whitebeard and lecture him about his health.

Used to the way Franky could go from shouting "SUPER!" to conversing seriously about keels and docks and mechanisms run on carbonated drinks in the blink of an eye.

Used to the fact that the Strawhats counted an _animated skeleton_ among their crew; used to Brook's strange laugh and beautiful music and the way he never seemed to tire of watching his crewmates' antics.

Used to the way that Robin could almost disappear in her silence, curled up somewhere with a book, and the way her crewmates nevertheless always knew where to find her.

And yet, all the quirks and oddnesses of the visiting pirates could not compare to the reality of Luffy, awake and bouncing around the Moby Dick like the miniature whirlwind he was. There really was – and Ace knew this better than anyone – no getting used to Luffy.

Not that his fellow crewmates knew this. And their attempts to rationalize the rookie captain's actions, words, _existence_, caused Ace no end of amusement. Which Luffy's crew shared with him.

It didn't help that the Whitebeard pirates' first experience of Luffy awake (…other than him falling from the sky, and really, shouldn't that just say it all) was his first meal after being unconscious for nearly a week. Once Luffy's crew tired of mobbing him in excitement at seeing him awake, Ace steered them all into the dining room. Allowing Luffy to eat in the infirmary being poor thanks to the doctors and nurses who had looked after him and Ace both.

René was waiting for them, setting down the last of a small mountain of food on a table. Someone, Ace suspected Sanji, must have alerted the cooks that Luffy was finally awake. And so Marjane had whipped up what would normally feed Ace.

There were only two problems with this.

One: Luffy hadn't eaten in six days, and so would be looking to make up for all 30 missed meals – preferably in one sitting.

Two: He really could eat more than Ace.

Sanji had been engaged in epic battle with the head chef of the Moby Dick over this fact for the past six days (not that he'd could have had any idea of how much Ace was capable of eating, he'd just had faith that Luffy could out-eat _anybody_) and every time he'd tried to convince her, Marjane had laughed in his face and booted him out of her kitchen.

"Don't worry, your captain won't starve. Now get out of my way boy, I'm busy."

Ace (who actually knew how much they could both eat) had stayed well out of it. Any attempt to reason with the chef would be exhaustingly frustrating – as Sanji was finding out first-hand – not to mention pointless. While Marjane might have a soft spot for people who appreciated food as much as Ace did, she trusted no one's assessment of a person's appetite but her own. It was said among their allies that Marjane only had to _look_ at a person to know how much they ate, what they liked to eat, and whether they were allergic to pickles. Ace still hadn't figured out how she did it.

He was curious to see what she would make of Luffy.

…who had just demolished, in 20 seconds flat, a quantity of food that would take Ace at least half-an-hour to eat. He was impressed.

"More!"

René was considerably less impressed. Looked, in fact, like he had seen a particularly terrifying ghost. Ace had seen him take out a mid-sized Sea King with a pair of kitchen knives and didn't think anything could actually scare the man.

To be fair, Luffy's appetite was a bit ridiculous.

"I'll be… right back." René said, and bolted.

He returned five minutes later, still slightly whey-faced, with André and Adelaide in tow, all three bearing a large tray of food, and each looking more harried than the last. Several members of Ace's crew crept in after them to watch the show.

Ace contemplated telling them that Luffy would eat meat raw, but didn't dare – for one, Marjane would kill him for implying that she couldn't cook well or fast enough to feed his brother. And Sanji would probably be honour-bound to barge into the kitchen and ensure his captain got a hot meal himself, or some such stupid thing. Which would be tantamount to declaring war on Marjane, who would pull out her potato peeler (or, if she was really pissed off, the _spatula_) and then there would be hell to pay. And someone would have to interrupt Whitebeard's nap so he could deal with it.

People who interrupted Whitebeard's naps got thrown through walls. Ace knew this well.

No, best to let René and the others sweat it out – Sanji had tried to warn them, after all, and it would be unfair to deprive him of the satisfaction of standing there, smoking and smirking and very clearly not saying "I told you so" to the line of cooks dashing in and out of the dining-room with more and more food for the ever-ravenous Luffy.

So Ace contented himself with sitting and watching Marco break up the burgeoning gambling game of "how much Luffy could eat" – which Nami would inevitably win – and enjoying the various looks of "oh my god is he even human!?" on his crewmates' faces. And occasionally stealing from Luffy's plate when his brother wasn't looking.

Eventually Luffy noticed the theft.

"Hey! Get your own plate!"

Which Usopp protested rather loudly: "You hypocrite! You always steal from other people's plates!"

Ace laughed.

And laughed. And laughed.

After a while it occurred to him that he was probably slightly hysterical, but what the hell – Luffy wouldn't care, the Strawhats didn't know him well enough to tell, and as for his own crewmates, as long as he didn't start crying they probably wouldn't get too concerned. Although if he _did_ start crying, they would probably all be too busy staring at Luffy with that same transfixed horror to notice.

Until Tobi, an idiot from Marco's division, turned his attention from Luffy long enough to blurt out:

"Hey Ace, was that all true about Gol D. Roger being your old man?"

And he was plunged in ice again.

It figured, Ace thought bitterly, that his sense of well-being should only be allowed to last so long. His crewmates had frozen, silent and uncertain, the atmosphere in the room gone from festive to tense in the space of a sentence, and Marco looked liked he was going to _eat_ Tobi for opening _his stupid trap_-

"Ace doesn't like talking about his dad." Luffy announced, before continuing his uncanny imitation of a Black Hole on all the food within (stretchy) arm's reach.

As suddenly as the mood had darkened, it lifted again.

Having a dumb little brother meant that, yeah, Luffy didn't think twice about idiot things like, say, invading goddamn Impel Down _by himself_! But it also meant that he always took things at face value – and if a younger Ace in a fit had declared out of the blue: "Roger isn't my dad! I don't _have_ a dad! And I don't want to talk about it, go away Luffy!" Well, then, that was perfectly reasonable, and it never came up again. Although Luffy had ignored the part about going away.

There was something Ace had to clear up, however. "My dad is Whitebeard." So _fuck you_ Sengoku.

"Hmmnph! Yphmnb wmnff bnmmnn-"

"Again Luffy, this time without the food."

His brother swallowed. "Well if Whitebeard is all your guy's dad…are you guys all brothers? And if _they're_ all your brothers does that make them my brothers too?"

For the second time is as many minutes the atmosphere was turned on its head, except now Ace was having the time of his life.

"Sure?" Marco hazarded, looking more bewildered than Ace had ever seen him. "Uh… maybe more like cousins?"

Which, of course, impressed Luffy to no end. "Ooooh, _I've never had a cousin before!_"

Marjane finally came by and, upon seeing Luffy in action, nodded to Sanji and declared, "He has a healthy appetite."

The Strawhat cook seethed at the implied dismissal until Yanick, the sous-chef, pulled him aside and explained that "healthy" meant "inhuman" and the nod meant that Sanji was now welcome in Marjane's kitchen. Sanji was considerably more cheerful after that.

And Luffy… was entirely enchanted by the Moby Dick and everyone on it.

Having eaten enough to feed a small country, he proceeded to drag his crew around the ship for a tour, haphazardly guided by Ace (in that Luffy ran around enthusiastically, and Ace told him the name and use of the room he had stumbled into), and stopped every few minutes to make friends with the increasingly bewildered members of Ace's crew.

Eventually, Ace left them to their own devices, trusting that not even Luffy could destroy the Moby Dick (Ace had failed to, after all), and went to attend to his long-neglected duties as Second Division Commander. Which only lasted until members of Oars' crew swung by and kidnapped him so their captain could see for himself that Ace was alright.

He stayed until late in the evening – unable to quite bring himself to leave the friend who had given up so much to bring Ace home. But after Ace fell asleep mid-sentence for the third time in less than a minute, Oars insisted he get back to the Moby Dick where he could sleep in a _bed_.

He meant to check up on Luffy and the others before going to bed, but before he found them, he ran into Jozu, who took one look at Ace and dragged him to his bunk.

"I'm _fine_!" This coddling business was going to get boring very fast. The hard-headed bastard ignored him.

"Some of the guys are double-bunking so your brother and his crew can have their own cabin." Jozu informed him, still keeping an unreasonably firm grasp on Ace's upper arm. He was tempted to disperse, just for the principle of the thing, but he had a feeling that Jozu would get Marco involved and, well – his crewmates would leap into hell itself to rescue him, the idiots, but they also weren't above beating the crap out of him if they thought it would make him heal faster. "Now sleep, or so help me I'll tell Dr. Apgar you tried baiting me into a sparring session."

"That's _cheating_!"

"Goodnight Ace."

So his nakama were turning into overbearing fusspots and they were going to smother him in attention within the week, but Oars and Jozu… might have had a point. Possibly.

Beds were nice. Ace hadn't sleep in his own bunk since he left to chase down Teach – hadn't slept much in those days preceding his departure either – and now, lying there he was surprised to realize how much he'd missed it.

Ace fell asleep with a smile on his face, the sounds of his ship and his nakama surrounding him, and dreamed of fire, and freedom, and the open air.


End file.
